<Begin Segment 18>

FA: Did the Japanese American community, did the Japanese American leadership embrace the Fair Play Committee at Heart Mountain at the time, or not?

MW: I cannot say that they embraced the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee. However, in Heart Mountain, the block leaders were mostly Issei. And the block leaders were very sympathetic with the Heart Mountain resisters, especially Mr. Tsuneishi, Paul Tsuneishi's father, who spoke both English and Japanese. And he would try to transmit to the Japanese community what exactly, what the Fair Play Committee was trying to accomplish. And I believe that's one of the reasons why the Issei do not hold against the Fair Play Committee the kind of animus that we still find extant among the veterans and the elderly. Well, I suppose those who belonged to the JACL and believed that it was our first priority to share blood -- to shed blood on the battlefield, and that you were a coward if you didn't. And that it destroys our image by having that record of ending up in a penitentiary. So Mr. Tsuneishi smoothed things over really...

FA: Has the community, has the Japanese American community today accepted the Heart Mountain resisters?

MW: As far as I'm concerned -- now, of course, you know very well that there are the detractors, but I believe that they may end up like the ronins, that they had a hard choice to make, and there are going to be generations who succeed us who are going to hold up this group as the Jews are now holding up some groups of Jews who really fought against the concentration camps. And more and more stories are emerging and in the same light, several generations from now, these Heart Mountain resisters are going to become legendary figures and they are going to be proudly pointed to as having been young people who would not put up with what the government, what our community leaders felt was best for us.

FA: That's how you feel and that's how I feel. But for someone who doesn't know this whole story, Michi, is there a division in the Japanese American community today?

MW: Well, you know there is a division. I do believe that it's based on their being a bit too lazy to go to the National Archives to do a little bit of research. You find out the truth. It is -- there is nothing, nothing like primary documents of the period. Not an interpretation of the document but you must read the documents. And it will just blow your mind to think that, oh, these young people in this camp had the courage to organize and to fight the great United States.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1998, 2005 Frank Abe and Densho. All Rights Reserved.